The wife of Bolton boxer Amir Khan says he no longer cheats on her now he’s an “old man”.
The 34-year-old fighter has been accused of cheating more than nine times but vows he is a “changed man”.
In a new Kardashians-style fly-on-the-wall TV show, wife Faryal, 29, tells how she did not want to give up on the father of their children.
The New Yorker says she has forgiven him but still struggles with being branded a “gold-digger” and a “doormat” by social media trolls.
The cameras chronicle the couple and their children, Lamaisah, six, Alayna, two, and one-year-old Muhammad at their £1.5million home in BBC Three series Meet the Khans: Big in Bolton.
Faryal insists: “We’ve moved on. The past is the past, we were young, we grew up together – the bad and the good.
“Amir was so famous and so young when I first started dating him and married him, and now it’s like… he’s an old man!”
“It changes with time,” agrees Amir. “When you have three kids, it changes your responsibilities. I’ve had that crazy life before, now I’m a changed man.”
Faryal even invites cameras into a therapy session where she discusses the couple’s rocky past, and admits she experienced postnatal depression after having their firstborn.
Allegations of Amir’s cheating include flings while they were engaged and while Faryal was pregnant, and claims of a threesome and online sex chats, The Mirror reports.
“My relationship still gets judged for what I’ve been through,” Faryal tells the therapist, weeping. “A lot of people have ups and downs – the only difference is my marriage is quite public. I married a celebrity.”
The couple said they “cherished” spending time together in the pandemic, and apologised for breaching lockdown rules.
“Sadly we ain’t stuck to the rules at times,” Amir said. “It’s been very hard for me, I have struggled because I’m at outgoing person. I love to socialise with people and see my family. I do apologise. We do regret it.”
Amir also confirmed he has been talking to promoter Eddie Hearn about a potential fight with Kell Brook.
“I want to get back in the ring, I’ve been missing it,” he said.
Amir rose to fame when he won a silver medal at the 2004 Olympics at 17 – Britain’s youngest boxing medallist.
He went on to hold two world titles and is now estimated to be worth £23m.
Explaining his cheating, Faryal says, sympathetically: “He was never able to enjoy his youth because of all his hard work, so he never really got it out of his system. He’d get caught in the wrong places.”
In 2017, Faryal discovered she was pregnant with the couple’s second child, Alayna, which helped get their relationship back on track.
“She was such a blessing – she’s my little angel,” says Faryal. “So when you hear people say [of herself] ‘She’s a gold-digger, she’s a doormat’, it’s so hurtful.”
During their most troubled period, when they split, Amir falsely accused Faryal of cheating on him with boxer Anthony Joshua.
“We’ve been through hell and back,” admits Faryal. But even the couple’s first date at the May Fair hotel in Central London in September 2011 didn’t go smoothly – as they were pulled over by police while in Amir’s Rolls Royce.
“You were trying to impress me,” giggles Faryal. “You put a Cartier love bangle on me the first time we met.”
In January 2012 they exchanged rings at an engagement party and were married at a £1m ceremony the following year.
Faryal had a bitter spat with Amir’s dad Shah and mother Falak, claiming she was “bullied”, but they were reconciled in August 2019.
Faryal was studying to go to law school when the couple met, but jokes in the opening episode that once she met the boxer: “I was like, forget school – got myself a millionaire!”
Now, she says: “I make more than a lawyer.”
Faryal admits a pair of £2,000 Swarovski Louboutins are just for show, while Amir buys £100,000 watches and says “money means nothing” to him. “The way I look at it, I worked very hard for it.”
He is building a wedding venue in Bolton that was due to cost £3.2m. However, costs have spiralled to £11.5m.
“It hurts knowing how much money has gone to waste,” he says. “Literally, £5m has gone missing.”
And Faryal jokes she actually is a mum of four as viewers see Amir struggle to cook eggs on toast.
“I do all the chores,” she complains. “He does nothing. He can’t make breakfast. Without me he’d be lost.”